It's funny how the word was originally used. I don't mean the version in Genesis; that makes perfect sense, not only etymologically, but also, as Hercule Poirot would say, psychologically. But when Hesiod talks about the primeval emptiness of the Universe, and ends that void with, not Gaia and Uranus, but Erebus and Nyx, you really have to wonder. Even given Boeotia's admittedly difficult weather - at least, difficult weather compared to the Isles - it remains undisputedly Greek; the Mediterranean sun over the Gulf of Corinth should have made up for the cruel winters and hard summers.
The downward spiral that ends in the inevitable Dusk of the Gods is something you can understand in Scandinavian myth; the land of the Norsemen would have told Hesiod a thing or two about the cruelty of winter. When snow covered everything for miles around, falling endlessly through a seemingly endless night, with no sound save the wind in the trees and the wolves in the distance, old women who spun tales for children clustered around them before the fire could have been forgiven for thinking up Ragnarok. The paths of glory must lead somewhere.
Admittedly, the children of Hellas were, as a rule, far more cheerful. Their tragedies spoke of grief, but not of despair. One sympathizes with Niobe, but one is not overtaken by a sense of the hopelessness of life and an overwhelming urge to end it all.
This is the point where I realize I'm rambling and wonder how on earth to end this without it being painfully obvious that I am doing it to put myself out of my misery. Having said it, though, it is obvious... and thus I say Audaces fortuna iuvat. And bid farewell, in the end, to the Latin poet.
